I'm sorry if this particular arguement has been brought up before but I did a quick search and couldn't find it. Anyway, it's a standard Christian apologetic arguement, but like I said one that I haven't found on here, and my rebuttall skills aren't that hot when I'm sober let alone when I've had 5 beers; so I was wondering if any of you fine people would point out just how wrong the arguement is.
From the link tsg kindly posted:
The simple, intuitive point of the argument from conscience is that everyone in the world knows, deep down, that he is absolutely obligated to be and do good, and this absolute obligation could come only from God. Thus everyone knows God, however obscurely, by this moral intuition, which we usually call conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the soul.
Note the highlighted bit. That's an unsupported -- and probably unsupportable -- assertion. Kreef himself points out four alternate explanations and dismisses them inappropriately and incorrectly. Just as a simple, example, he suggests that it might arise from some "ideal" and then argues that this is impossible:
The first possibility means that the basis of conscience is a law without a lawgiver. We are obligated absolutely to an abstract ideal, a pattern of behavior. The question then comes up, where does this pattern exist? If it does not exist anywhere, how can a real person be under the authority of something unreal?
This, of course, is absolute gibberish. Humans, for example, are
absolutely subject to the abstraction known as the law of gravity -- if you don't believe me, I have an office window on a high floor and I invite Kreef to demonstrate how he is not "under the authority of" gravity. Perhaps fortuantely for him, I also have a hospital within three blocks of my office as well.
A more sophisticated argument would point out that social behavior is naturalized in humans (and other social primates) just as it is in bees -- or just as dam buildilng is in beavers. He rejects this as well.
The problem with that explanation is that it, like the first, does not account for the absoluteness of conscience's authority. We believe we ought to disobey an instinct—any instinct—on some occasions. But we do not believe we ought ever to disobey our conscience.
This is not only gibberish, but it's
theologically incorrect. One of the key aspects of Christian theology is that "following the dictates of your own heart." is dangerous (The wise man says, "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." -- Prov. 28:26) precisely because one's conscience can mislead one. -- "Thy heart tells thee so! Except the word of God beareth witness in this matter, other testimony is of no value. -- Bunyan,
Pilgrim's Progress)
Basically, his argument is laughable.
so you'll have to type in "argument from conscience" in google and click the top link. Sorry.
